Free ice fishing day offered in Vermont

Vermont’s state-wide Free Ice Fishing Day is Saturday, Jan. 27.

Vt. hunters guidebooks available

Vermont 2024 hunting, trapping, and fishing licenses, as well as the 2024 lawbooks for these activities, are now available on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s website and wherever licenses are sold.

Fly fishing is therapy for some veterans

“Many veterans no longer refer to it as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder),” Bob Almeter points out. “They call it Post Traumatic Stress (PTS). It’s not a disorder. It’s part of who I am.”

Matthew Dickerson: River surveys suggests damage to fisheries done by floods

“It was comparable to Tropical Storm Irene. We lost a lot (though not all) of the young-of-year age class.” Austin Galinat, a fisheries scientist with Vermont Fish and Wildlife, was giving me an overview of some of the results of the late summer and early … (read more)

Matthew Dickerson: Visiting angler finds trout and clear water

River after river, stream after stream was running high and muddy. Unfishably muddy.

Matthew Dickerson: Dappled light on dappled fish

On such a hot day, my daughter-in-law McKenna and I figured that if we wanted both to enjoy the fishing and to catch fish, we’d need to get up to some cool, well-shaded bit of water, either far up into a gorge somewhere or to a mountain stream in the nati … (read more)

Matthew Dickerson: Of salmon, sturgeon and glimmers of hope

Late on a Wednesday afternoon, four huge Atlantic salmon finned in the current at the tail end of a long, deep pool on a small Maine river.

Matthew Dickerson: One more trout in the Upper Dam Pool

An hour or so earlier, a hefty trout had chased my imitation stonefly nymph up from the deep water in front me to within a foot of the surface just off the massive boulder on which I was standing.

Vermont free fishing day set for June 10

Vermont’s annual, statewide Summer Free Fishing Day is Saturday, June 10 this year, and it will be highlighted by a free family fishing festival in Grand Isle as well as opening day of the state’s regular bass fishing season.

Matthew Dickerson: Quiet evening. But a loud splash.

The reaction was instant. At the sound of the splash, my heart began to race. I could feel the rush of adrenaline as my head whipped around toward the sound. 

Goshen Dam restocked with trout

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department today announced that trout stocking will resume this spring at Sugar Hill Reservoir, also known as Goshen Dam, in Goshen, following the completion of safety enhancements made to the dam over the last two years.

Matthew Dickerson: A new national park and two trout-fishing firsts

The morning began with a rainy drive of a little less than an hour along the western edge of New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia.

Matthew Dickerson: Fishing on thin ice

Even before stepping out onto the ice of Bryant Pond 30 minutes before dawn on New Year’s Day, I could tell it was going to be an unusual opening to Maine’s ice fishing season. 

Hunting & Trapping lawbooks available

Vermont 2023 hunting, trapping, and fishing licenses, as well as the 2023 lawbooks for these activities, are now available on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s website and wherever licenses are sold.

Matthew Dickerson: What fish taught me in 2022

It’s probably not accurate to say that fish taught me anything. Numerous fishing outings on which I failed to interact with any actual fish is evidence that I don’t even understand their language.

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